'councillor Milburn consoles his leader after news broke that councillor Gibson got away with more expenses than he did'

Over the last couple of days Mr Monkey has been having another look at the expenses claims of Laurel and Hardy, the comedy duo who represent the Cleadon and East Boldon Ward, councillors Potts and Milburn.

Armed only with a diary, a calculator and a list of council committee meetings, Mr Monkey has come to the conclusion that Laurel and Hardy have been having a very fine time at the behest of the public purse. Readers will remember that Mr Monkey revealed Dumb and Dumber’s excessive expense claims in a previous post CLICK HERE

The King of Sleaze David Potts accumulated £3116.81 whilst attending the Local Government Association’s “Environment Board”, travelling up and down to London (with the odd overnight stop) via first class rail travel. Over £800 was pocketed claimed largely without the production of any receipts.

Likewise, councillor Milburn the Cleadon Plonky managed to rack up £3129.85, this time via the Local Government Associations “Strategy and Finance Board”. Not to miss out on any free money, £300 was paid out with no proof that it had actually been spent.

Those of you who frequent this site on a regular basis will not be surprised by these figures – councillor Potts has always been top of the class when it comes to sponging a publicly funded jaunt to London, a free bed for the night and a slap up meal to boot. Clearly, he has also created Milburn in his own image, indeed they both love nothing more than a good feed at the pig’s trough at the public’s expense of course.

Whilst their greed may be galling, it’s surpassed by their total disregard for the people who elected them. Over a period of 6 consecutive LGA Environment Board meetings, cpunillor Potts never missed one of them. When it comes to 6 Community Area Forum meetings (the life blood of the councillor/electorate structure) all held within a couple of days of Potts’ trips to London, he managed to attend a grand total of ……0, zero, nil, zilch, none.

Councillor Milburn’s record is equally contemptible. 4 of his LGA Strategy and Finance Board meetings fell on the same day as his local CAF’s – Milburn chose to go to London on all four occasions, spending £1381 instead of representing those who elected him. Over the Council committee period 2008/2009, the 3 stooges – Conservative councillors for Cleadon and East Boldon (lets not forget the Donald Wood) – never managed to attend a CAF meeting as a trio. Pudgy Face Potts didn’t even manage to get his rather ample backside to one meeting, such is his laziness and contempt for the electorate.

So there you have it. When it comes to representing their communities, councillors David Potts and Jeffrey Milburn could not care less and would rather have a free couple of days in London, all paid for from the public purse.

Mr Monkey has this message for all you doubters out there … when you’re sitting in The Cottage or The Red Lion listening to the whines emanating from the mouths of Potts and Milburn as to how their reputations have been besmirched by The Monkey, remind them that all this information has been gleaned from the Councils own internet site. It’s free to use and free to see – the devil is in the detail, however, the devil is never in The Gazette!

'The memebr for Jarrow thinks the taxpayer should pay for his grocery bill'

It seems Jarrow MP Stephen Hepburn loves nothing more than a free feed and piss up at the taxpayers expense – maybe it’s a legacy from his days of being a South Tyneside councillor.

According to the Parliamentary expenses published yesterday, Mr Hepburn thinks that the taxpayer should pick up his grocery bill and he sees nothing wrong in claiming around £75 per week for food – last year the greedy bastard managed to fuck the taxpayer to the tune of £3,850 for his food bill alone.

His expenses also show that he claimed £450 for a washing machine and nearly £500 for a digital camera – which by coincidence happened to be bought a couple of weeks before Christmas – Mr Monkey reckons somebody probably got a canny Christmas present.

Mr Monkey also reckons that the taxpayer has been paying for his drinking habit under the guise of petty cash. Examination of Mr Hepburn’s claims reveal that he claimed £250 a month for ‘petty cash’. This is the monthly limit allowed and there’s no requirement to submit receipts.

This chimp can’t help wondering how he managed to claim exactly £250 month after month unless of course he was milking the system to feed his boozing habit – he can often be found on a Sunday afternoon pissed up in the Clock in Hebburn.

Maybe he should take a leaf out of David Miliband’s book and pay some of the money back?

Over the last 2 days Mr Monkey has revealed how Conservative group leader David Potts, and his colleague Jeff Milburn have milked the expenses system by pocketing nearly £7,000 in just 12 months. CLICK HERE and HERE.

Today Mr Monkey can reveal that screwing the expenses system is not exclusively a Tory thing. It seems that the local Labour party were keen to get in on the act; they have the greediest bastard of them all.

According to figures released earlier this week, Labour councillor Ernest Gibson, who represents Whiteleas, tops the list when it comes to expense claims. In 2008 – 09 he claimed nearly £5, 000 for travel, hotels and subsistence – that’s almost £100 a week.

Councillor Gibson who is renowned for his love of freebies and can more often than not be found downing large quantities of alcohol and stuffing his ample frame at the buffet table – all funded by the taxpayer – claimed £3,431 in travel expenses and £1,500 for hotels and meals.

It seems councillor Gibson’s appetite for all things free and his desire to screw the system knows no bounds, but then Mr Monkey reckons he’ll tell the public that it’s all within the rules – so isn’t it time the rules were changed Ernest?

It seems the similarities between today’s economic downturn and the great depression of the 1930’s are becoming more obvious by the day and following Sir Liam Donaldson’s (the chief medicalofficer) announcement on Friday about dramatically increasing the price of a unit of alcohol to allegedly curb binge drinking Mr Monkey reckons Nu-Labour are well on the way to matching that other great achievement of the 1920s and 30s; prohibition.

Anyone with an iota of sense knew that the health lobby were’nt going to stop at cigarettes. It took them long enough to get to the stage where smokers are now treated as pariahs, but they got there. Now, with tax on the things high and getting higher, the cancer sticks being banned from pubs, clubs, workplaces etc., advertising banned, health care services denied to those that won’t give up, patronising ads on TV et al to tell us to stop smoking by making people feel like war criminals if they still light up… the campaign has been templated, noted and laid out to follow in future. The only question is which of the two issues will be battered first? Fast Food, or Drink.

So, Sir Liam Donaldson, with the undoubted patronising acquiescence of the BBC, put forward his agenda on Friday. It isn’t too much of hearing stories like the one where a mother was stopped from buying a bottle of wine in case she gave it to her 14 year old daughter who was food shopping with her. If it isn’t that whatever tax or levy is put on the stuff, the drinks cabinet at the British Medical Association or the House of Commons will probably be liberally stocked, and lightly taxed, and also subsidised in the worst way by the taxpaying saps who will be victims of any policy. If it isn’t because the state believes they need to save us from ourselves, so we can fund their nonsensical bailout policies. No, Sir Liam believes that alcohol should have a minimum price based on the alcohol units in a drink.

The people will rebel on this one, because the vast majority of us like a drink. Mr Monkey included.

Do you know what, this chimp admits being drunk in his time and …

You know how many people he’s beaten up or knifed when drunk?

You know how many times he’s been to hospital as a result of being drunk?

You know how many times he’s been arrested for being of being drunk?

The answer is zero.

Apparently Sir Liam is proposing, in ever such an egalitarian way that because some people have a drink problem and behave like reprobates and cads, and despite having laws to stop them, if they are enforced properly, because of them, you want to punish everyone.

Thank fuck there’s an election looming, Labour’s fear of being cast into the wilderness should put an end to this fuckwit idea – at least for now but Mr Monkey predicts that tough measures to limit the sale of alcohol are on the way.

A sleazy picture of drunken yobs on Lukes Lane Estate in Hebburn has been used across the world to highlight the breakdown of British society under Labour.

The picture showing 2 youths in hoodies, swigging from a bottle has angered councillor John McCabe, aka ‘The Enforcer’ and his fellow Hebburn councillors who say the photograph does not properly represent the Lukes Lane Estate nor South Tyneside as a whole.

Councillor McCabe – the alleged wife beater said, “I think these pictures will anger all those town councillors who are working to improve places like the Lukes Lane Estate, where we have invested a lot of time and money”.

Mr Monkey wonders how often these so called representatives of the people visit some of the estates they represent because statements like this just show how out of touch they are.

Mr Monkey reckons it’s about time these councillors got off their lazy arses and saw for themselves the anti social behaviour that decent folk have to put up with on a daily basis before making fuckwit comments like this.

This chimp would like to remind The Enforcer that after more than a decade of Labour’s failed policies, hundreds of millions of pounds of public money, endless legislation and regulation the problem is worse than it’s ever been – and you’ve only got yourselves to blame.

So stop whining and do something about it, kissing your paymaster’s arse and burying your head in the sand won’t solve the problem.

Mr Monkey heard an interesting conversation in the members lounge recently about the impending sacking retirement of councillor Bill ‘The Buffoon’ Brady.

Apparently councillors Iain Malcolm and Barry Scorer have been secretly meeting to discuss their make up and things girlie the new cabinet and they’ve decided it’s time to get rid of The Buffoon .

As a sweetener, to protect his income they intend to offer him the chair of one of the lesser committees at this year’s Annual General Meeting, better known as the SWEETIE SHOP. This is when the piglets Labour councillors gather round Miss Piggy’s – aka Iain Malcolm’s – trough to see what scraps the old sow will throw at them.

Mr Monkey has learned that The Buffoon already suspects he’s about to be sacked from the cabinet and has started putting it about that he intends to retire in 2010 and not seek re-election. But like all Labour councillors he cannot leave without having the last word.

The Buffoon is trying to manoeuvre his 19 year old grandson, aptly named David Hogg into the vacant seat to ensure the Brady line continues, despite the fact that he has no political credentials other than being a member of the Westoe Labour party.

That said, he’s already got a reputation for being a piss head and is increasingly seen enjoying free hospitality at the expense of the council tax payer. This year he joined a select band of Labour councillors stuffing their faces and drinking whatever they could get their hands on at the Great North Run hospitality tent. He’s also got a reputation for being a lazy bastard who can’t get up in a morning; probably something to do with the fact that he works in the Atlantic and Vibe nightclubs.

With credentials like these he seems an ideal choice for Iain Malcolm’s sleazy world of local Labour politics.

Ugly Betty started her working life as a pickpocket but quickly turned to prostitution when she realised it was easier to steal a man’s money when his trousers were off than when they were on. Sex was her way of getting closer to a man to pilfer his money, simply a means to an end. She tried her luck at the clubs but was always chucked out for stealing. So she focused on the river, where she had greater access to the seamen and thier goodies.

Once she got into their cabins, she could wreak havoc, stealing whatever she could get her hands on. From their rooms, she would take cigarettes, cash, shoes, watches, clothing – anything she could give away or sell. From the galley, she pilfered meat, cheese, bread, packets of noodles, fruit and alcohol. She preferred the short-stay ships because she could do her business and get away before anyone knew what was taken. By the time they realised they’d been robbed, they would already be out at sea.

Ugly Betty admitted that, with her attitude, she wasn’t much of a lover. She didn’t give a damn about her clients’ sexual satisfaction; she didn’t even pretend to be interested. Sometimes she’d yawn, look at her watch or even try to take a nap while the man was busy trying to bang her. As he was about to shoot his load, she was only thinking about how she was going to reach down to his pants on the floor and empty his wallet.

Ugly Betty always took full advantage of opportunities to steal when she was on the ships, but there were lots of other pleasures to enjoy too. Ultimately she didn’t go aboard to steal but to make money through sex and have a party with the sailors. She didn’t want to just get on and off; she wanted to hang out with the men and make herself at home.

Arthur, a 68 year-old riverside veteran who was always willing to talk in depth to me, said that Ugly Betty used to move from ship to ship for days at a time, sometimes without even bothering to return home. She would live on the boats, party with the seamen at the clubs, then return with them to their cabins where they would sleep together. Usually she tried to pair up with one of the officers who could afford to keep her for days at a time. Sometimes she would even participate in the domestic upkeep of the ship to give the impression she cared, when all the time she was looking for yet more opportunities to rob its crew.

Such long-term interactions inevitably led to closer relationships and on more than one occasion she fell in love with her client. Once she grew attached to an old Greek captain. He seemed to have felt something for her too, more akin to empathy than lust, and she responded to his selfless concern with total devotion. He promised to send for her to start a new life on a Greek Island but quickly changed his mind when his dick started to swell and he felt a burning sensation every time he went for a piss.